“Hæc memini, et victum frustra contendere Thyrsim. Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis.” { 47}
Or is it the lamenting elegiac, { 48} which, in a kind heart, would move rather pity than blame; who bewaileth, with the great philosopher Heraclitus, the weakness of mankind, and the wretchedness of the world; who, surely, is to be praised, either for compassionately accompanying just causes of lamentations, or for rightly pointing out how weak be the passions of wofulness?
Is it the bitter, but wholesome iambic, { 49} who rubs the galled mind, making shame the trumpet of villany, with bold and open crying out against naughtiness?
“Omne vafer vitium ridenti tangit amico;” { 50}
who sportingly never leaveth, until he make a man laugh at folly, and, at length, ashamed to laugh at himself, which he cannot avoid without avoiding the folly; who, while “circum præcordia ludit,” giveth us to feel how many headaches a passionate life bringeth us to; who when all is done,
“Est Ulubris, animus si nos non deficit æquus.” { 51}
No, perchance, it is the comic; { 52} whom naughty play-makers and stage-keepers have justly made odious. To the arguments of abuse I will after answer; only thus much now is to be said, that the comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which he representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be; so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one. Now, as in geometry, the oblique must be known as well as the right, and in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even; so in the actions of our life, who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue. This doth the comedy handle so, in our private and domestical matters, as, with hearing it, we get, as it were, an experience of what is to be looked for, of a niggardly Demea, of a crafty Davus, of a flattering Gnatho, of a vain-glorious Thraso; and not only to know what effects are to be expected, but to know who be such, by the signifying badge given them by the comedian. And little reason hath any man to say, that men learn the evil by seeing it so set out; since, as I said before, there is no man living, but by the force truth hath in nature, no sooner seeth these men play their parts, but wisheth them in “pistrinum;” { 53} although, perchance, the sack of his own faults lie so behind his back, that he seeth not himself to dance in the same measure, whereto yet nothing can more open his eyes than to see his own actions contemptibly set forth; so that the right use of comedy will, I think, by nobody be blamed.